Dez Poemas

Eva Veiga

Esta é a hora mineral do crepúsculo
cando o cristal
soña
se-la burbulla incandescente
do metal vencido.
E soñar é a extrema tentación de confundirse.
Ó lombo dos cabalos
o monte baixa ás chairas.
Ó pé do camiño unha árbore
contraluz
suspende o froito como un instante
se prende
flor de tempo.
O mundo é o segredo das cunchas.

de Paisaxes do baleiro (Edicións Xerais de Galicia, 1999)




Creo na esperanza
que redime o presente de ser pasado.




Non cabe
esta flor salgada
no meu peito.
Miña nai chora ou ri
coma un río,
e sálvame.
Eu son nena
e ben sabe ela
que o mar
nunca desemboca,
anega.




Un día chegas a esta extensión
da mirada.
Non sabes de onde vés porque non vés
dun lugar.
Traíate o tempo como o vento trae
o oportuno azar.
Estás aquí
xa para sempre
anel de olvido ou de memoria.
Pero, imposible
non ser luz e a súa cicatriz.

de A luz e as súas cicatrices (Sociedad de Cultura Valle-Inclán, 2005)




E puxéronche un nome
ao que agarrarse a existencia
como unha hedra a percorrer
un baleiro de cristal.




A luz
é unha bolboreta
que nos teus ollos
se abre e se pecha.
É o mel
que nas súas cámaras
secretas e ás escuras
fan as flores e as abellas.
É a voz
que disipa as brétemas
do medo e fai brincar
de alegría o corazón.
É o vento
que vén máis aló do mar
e súbito lle abre a porta
á laranxa e ao limón.
É o anel
do tempo nos teus dedos
a tecer un soño nos espellos
como fan o sol e maila lúa
a tramar a noite e mailo día.




Nai,
parten as naves e hei de ir
ata que os dedos do soño cesen
de tecer as augas.




Baixo até o río
e no fondo da súa transparencia
miro os cantos dispostos
en azaroso orde apenas removidos
e convocados polo íntimo fulgor
da corrente.
Aparentemente inconexas as brunidas pedras
viven
a súa existencia profunda
cada unha
abrigando un peixe ou unha ausencia.
E pregúntome
se haberá alguén capaz de distinguilas
a todas pola verdade do seu nome:
Poderiamos entón descifrar
que di a auga,
que di o tempo.




En que parte do traxecto aniñaron
a túa preguiza e quen agora
se axeonlla a rezar por ti?
Somos a penas un bafo indeciso
na velocidade da luz.
Como poñer en pé e apropiármonos
dunha identidade tan estraña?
A quen recoñecen os meus dentes
cando morden esa estrela que levas na fronte?
A auga brinca entre as pedras
mais non lembra nada dunha fonte escura.




Fermosa
esta luz que acaba de chegar
a este instante libre aínda
de palabra, de pedra ou de azul
que o sinale.
Luz que tingue a nada
de inmensa transparencia.

Read the English translation

Listen to the original read by the poet:

For some strange reason, I decided to translate these poems by starting with the last one in each book and working my way backwards. This seemed to me to gather them up as the tide gathers stones on the beach, rakes them up in its fingers. Translation is a voice, the voice of the author interpreting the poems. Translation is hearing, not doing. Being open, not closed. It is not about activity, which is how I understood it in the beginning, when I would lug large dictionaries around and flick my way through them. Now I know most of the words and can afford to leave the dictionaries be, let them settle, so that I can hear the wind. The wind is what carries the translation to our ears. For me, the beauty of these poems lies in “deciphering what the water and time have to say.” Poetry should speak to us like the environment. This means we are in communication.

Eva Veiga (b. 1961 in Ombre, Pontedeume, northwest Galicia) is the author of eight poetry collections to date, including Paisaxes do baleiro (Landscapes of the Void, 1999) and A luz e as súas cicatrices (Light and Its Scars, 2005), from which these poems are taken. She studied English at university and has had an intense and successful career as a journalist on the Galician newspaper El Ideal Gallego and on Galician TV, where she is known for directing and presenting cultural programs. She presented the TV documentary on the history of Galician art, Galicia no tempo (Galicia in Time), which received an honorable mention in the Media Save Art 91 meeting. Her poetry has been similarly recognized. In 2014 she received the Galician-Language Writers Association’s award for best work of poetry and in 2016 the Spanish Critics’ Award for Galician poetry.

Jonathan Dunne translates literature from Bulgarian, Catalan, Galician, and Spanish. His translations of work by the Galician writer Manuel Rivas are published by Penguin Random House. He directs the publishing house Small Stations Press, the largest publisher of Galician literature in English, which includes the poetry collections Galician Songs and New Leaves by the Galician poet Rosalía de Castro in Erín Moure’s translation. A list of their publications can be found on their website here. He has written three books on the English language: The DNA of the English Language (2007) about English word connections, The Life of a Translator (2013) about coincidence in translation, and Stones Of Ithaca (2019) about the connection between language and the environment.